


The April Fool's Babies

by StuckySituation



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: (not happening on screen but talked about and refers to the Mpreg), April Fools' Day, Avengers Tower, Domestic Avengers, Established Relationship, Humor, M/M, Mpreg, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Pranks and Practical Jokes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-30 13:10:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18315914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StuckySituation/pseuds/StuckySituation
Summary: “I’m pregnant,” Bucky says, and the first feeling that Steve experiences isrelief.Granted, that might sound surprising, but Steve knows what day it is, and this -- Bucky, with his hair a tangled, sweaty mess, leaning against the doorframe, with a big, brown envelope in his hand and his face carefully blank and neutral -- at last explains the horrible week and clears Steve’s mind from his fears and worries.“Oh, good,” Steve says and sits down at the kitchen table.Nothing is wrong with Bucky, after all. The sleepless nights, the haunted look that has been shadowing his face for days, everything must have been just set up for the prank.This is by far stranger prank than any of those Bucky used to pull, but at the same time, it’s not that surprising. His sense of humor has become understandably a lot more twisted after the Hydra years.“Good?”Bucky says. “What the fuck, Steve?”“I mean, uh. Wow! Surprising. How did that happen?”





	The April Fool's Babies

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: There's nothing explicit or on screen, but there is some talk about things falling under Non-Consensual Body Modification stuffs (specifically regarding the modifications that could have made Mpreg possible). Also some body horror kind of stuff is discussed in dialogue (Bucky's kinda gory theories) and few mentions of blood. Again, nothing on screen.
> 
> These are not the main focus here, but I didn't want to let these catch anyone off guard.

 

 

“I’m pregnant,” Bucky says, and the first feeling that Steve experiences is  _ relief. _

 

Granted, that might sound surprising, but Steve  _ knows  _ that today is April 1st, and this -- Bucky, with his hair a tangled, sweaty mess, leaning against the doorframe, a big, brown envelope in his hand and his face carefully blank and neutral -- at last explains the horrible last week and clears Steve’s mind from his fears and worries.

 

“Oh, good,” Steve says and sits down at the kitchen table.

 

Nothing is wrong with Bucky, after all. The sleepless nights, the haunted look that has been shadowing his face for days, everything must have been just set up for the prank.

 

This is by far stranger prank than any of those Bucky used to pull, but at the same time, it’s not  _ that  _ surprising. His sense of humor has become understandably a lot more twisted after the Hydra years.

 

_ “Good?”  _ Bucky says. “What the fuck, Steve?”

 

“I mean, uh. Wow! Surprising. How did that happen?”

  
  


\---

  
  


Apparently, Bucky has put  _ a lot  _ of thought into his prank.

 

“I freaked out about a week ago when I started to hear these extra…  _ heartbeats…  _ inside me. They were faint and first I thought I was having auditory hallucinations again and it would pass. But it  _ didn’t,  _ and then I started to think that maybe some alien had crawled inside me, or laid some eggs inside my skin that had hatched--”

 

Steve thought that ‘I’m pregnant’ was bad enough. Nope. “You read too much science fiction, Buck.”

 

Bucky gives him a glare. “You’ve seen literal aliens. It wasn’t that far-fetched fear.”

 

“Point,” Steve says, and does his best to push the  _ ‘aliens laying eggs under the skin’  _ idea out of his head.

 

“So, I asked for Bruce to check out what was inside me. In case it  _ was  _ aliens, Bruce asked Tony to come to the lab as well in his suit--”

 

Bucky had really thought out this scenario in detail, but there was one glaring flaw. Steve can’t help but point out the plot hole in Bucky’s story. “Wait, why didn’t you ask my help?”

 

“You would have been compromised,” Bucky says with a sigh. “What if the alien spawn decided to mind control me? Or exploded out of my stomach? Anyway, that is not the point, the heartbeats weren’t aliens’--”

 

Steve  _ knows  _ this is just a prank, but he’s not going to let that slide. “Of course I would have been  _ compromised.  _ But do you think I would have been happy to hear afterwards that you had  _ died  _ without me there? Bucky!”

 

“Steve,” Bucky says slowly and with great annoyance. “We can talk about  _ that  _ later. It’s not the point. There were no aliens. I didn’t die.  _ Can I finish?” _

 

“Fine,” Steve says. He can humor Bucky and hear the rest of his elaborate, angsty, twisted prank. “So then Bruce cut you open and found babies instead?”

 

Bucky stares at him. “‘Cut me open’? Jesus Christ,  _ no.  _ He used ultrasound machine.”

 

“Oh, right. Of course he used that.” Sometimes Steve forgets about all the modern tech.

 

Bucky puts down the envelope on the table, in front of Steve, and finally sits down as well. “And that’s… well, that’s how we found out that I’m pregnant.”

 

Steve opens the envelope and pulls out a bunch of pictures. He can see the resemblance to the ultrasound pictures of babies he has seen on TV shows, but honestly, all he can really make out is bunch of strange shapes.

 

Bucky points at two vague blobs. “So, uh. This one is Spawn Alfa, and here’s Spawn Bravo.”

 

Steve stares at the blobs. He feels so  _ confused --  _ a part of him wants to laugh  _ (‘Oh god, where do you get your ideas, Bucky?’), _ a part of him is still so relieved  _ (‘Thank god, you were busy plotting a prank whole week, I was worried something was actually wrong’), _ a part of him is angry  _ (‘You made me worry for no reason?’)... _ and yet another part of him is…  _ sad.  _ It hits him that as bizarre as this story is, he wouldn’t be opposited for it to be  _ real. _

 

But of course it’s not.

 

Steve clears his throat. He pushes away his feelings, and instead says: “Wow. Twins? Congratulations, Buck. So, who’s the father?”

 

Bucky narrows his eyes at him with suspicion. “How are you skipping the hysterics and getting right to the shitty jokes already? I  _ hope  _ they won’t get your sense of humor.”

 

“Must be the shock,” Steve says easily. “How did this happen, then? As far as I knew, you don’t have exactly the right… equipment to grow spawns. Babies. Fetuses.”

 

Bucky leans back in his chair, and crosses his arms across his chest. “Well. Apparently Hydra experimented on me more than we realised.”

 

For fuck’s sake, April Fool’s Pranks were supposed to be fun and light hearted. Steve bites his tongue from pointing that out to Bucky.

 

“Bruce is fairly certain that this  _ is _ the first time I’ve got pregnant though,” Bucky says uncomfortably. “He believes that the stress the Hydra put me through kept my body temporarily infertile. I, uh, guess I had periods few months ago, but didn’t realise what was happening at the time.”

 

Steve is going to give hell for Bucky for giving him all these mental images. Alien eggs under his skin, twin pregnancy,  _ periods…  _ “You were, what, bleeding, and didn’t think anything weird was happening?”

 

“My body has done a lot of weird things,” Bucky says defensively. “There were plausible explanations for it, so  _ no,  _ ‘periods’ wasn’t the first thing in my mind when I was suddenly cramping and my ass was bleeding. I thought that there were some left over tech inside me that was finally dislodging and making me bleed.”

 

Steve has to remind himself that  _ none of this actually happened.  _ Because he kinda wants to yell at Bucky for even suggesting that he had been in strange pains and had hid it from everyone, again.

 

“Okay, fine, makes sense,” Steve says. “So. You’re pregnant, with twins. And Bruce and Tony know.”

 

“Uh, not only Bruce and Tony,” Bucky says, with a guilty face. “I had to freak out about it to someone, so I told Natasha. And then Clint found out, and Tony told Pepper behind my back so she could start to make preparations in case the news got out.”

 

So… Bucky had roped almost everyone into this prank? It was kind of… impressive. And confusing. “So basically everyone already knows but me?”

 

“Sam doesn’t?” Bucky says weakly. “I’m sorry. I had to wrap my head around it before telling you. I didn’t  _ mean  _ to let so many people know before you.”

 

“Don’t worry, I understand.” Steve looks down at the pictures. He still doesn’t understand  _ where  _ Bucky is planning to go with all of this. “So what now?”

 

“You’re taking this a lot calmer than I thought,” Bucky says carefully, and Steve looks up.

 

Bucky has never been  _ expressive --  _ oh sure, he used to  _ seem  _ like he was an open book, all wide smiles, wide gestures, and loud voices, but he has always been a master of hiding what he actually feels or thinks. Even before the war, he smiled when he was happy, he smiled when he was angry, and he smiled when he was sad. If anything, he has become a more expressive lately, if only because he keeps forgetting to put on his smile. Seeing what’s going on within him is still not easy.

 

But now, Steve sees a glimpse of hope in his eyes that makes him pause.

 

Maybe this isn’t  _ just  _ a prank for Bucky. Bucky has had a hard time to vocalize his own wants, his own dreams, and maybe… maybe this was a really long winded way of his to both pull a prank on Steve and to scout his thoughts regarding the idea of starting a family together.

 

They had never talked about kids, and honestly, Steve is mildly afraid of children, but he knows that Bucky had always took great pride in his role as the big brother. He adored babies almost as much as he loved all fluffy animals (and even not so fluffy animals).

 

Did… did Bucky  _ want  _ kids? Of course neither of them would ever  _ really  _ be able to get pregnant, but adoption was still a possibility in this crazy liberal new millennia.

 

Steve reaches his hand out for Bucky, and waits until Bucky takes it hesitantly. “Bucky. I never thought  _ a family  _ would be a possibility with you. I never  _ needed  _ for it to be a possibility for us. I need some time to wrap  _ my  _ head around this, but I’m not going to run away screaming from the idea of us having a kid or two. So... what now?”

 

Some tension leaves Bucky, and he smiles tentatively. “Well. We started on the security plans with Natasha. Let me get the folder.”

 

Steve lets go of his hand. He was ready for Bucky to drop the prank, but apparently he’s not yet finished with the joke.

  
  


\---

  
  


Flipping through the thick folder, Steve becomes more and more certain that this  _ is  _ actually a prank that got out of hand. 

 

Perhaps originally Bucky planned this to be a simple joke, but then he started to wish that it would all be real. The amount of thought that has been put into the plans is astonishing. It looks like Bucky and Natasha have been pulling some serious all-nighters this week, during all those nights that Bucky left their floor to what Steve had assumed was to prowl through the empty Tower. There’s no mentions of babies in the files, everything is in code.

 

“We can’t go public with any of this,” Bucky says. Steve is still sitting at the kitchen table while going through the files, but Bucky is pacing around the kitchen now. “It’s too risky for them. Clint suggested that I should move out of the Tower with the babies after the birth.”

 

“You would move out of the Tower?” Steve looks up from the files and frowns. “What about me?”

 

“Officially you would still live and work here,” Bucky says. “We would need to be careful in balancing how much time you would spend with us. It would be a disaster if anyone recognized you and connected the kids with you. Just imagine what kind of the targets the kids would become.”

 

Steve feels suddenly wrong footed. He thought that this was about  _ them  _ getting kids, not about  _ Bucky  _ getting kids. Away from Steve. “But… I can’t be  _ not  _ a part of their life.”

 

“I know, Steve. I’m not saying that. But their safety  _ will  _ need to come first,” Bucky says sharply. “It’ll be safer for the kids if you are Uncle Steve, a close family friend, and not ‘Daddy Two’, at least until they are old enough to understand why they have to be careful about it. Natasha and I can pretend to be a divorced couple, with me as the main caretaker of kids while she’s busy with her career. That’ll pull less attention than a pair of queers with adopted kids.”

 

Vague images of having a happy, carefree family with Bucky start to fade away from Steve. Of course they would never have a sort of easy life where they could just walk around the park together, hand in hand, with their kids in the strollers. Even their relationship is not public knowledge.

 

Bucky takes the folder and flips through files until he finds what he’s looked for. “Here, we started this list of potential places I could move to with the kids. They are all within a reasonable distance from Manhattan, so you can come by whenever you want to with a cloaked quinjet. We haven’t yet finished ranking them--”

  
  


\---

  
  


It’s almost noon when Steve manages to finally usher Bucky to take a bath break to unwind. The files are still on their table and Steve stares at them for a moment, gathering his thoughts.

 

It would be dangerous. It would be stressful. But… maybe… maybe they could pull this off. Bucky clearly wants this, or he wouldn’t have gone through the trouble of putting the detailed plans together. And Steve is starting to warm up to the concept. He looks at the pictures of the suburbs and countryside, and imagines what it would be like to have a real  _ home  _ somewhere out there, with Bucky and their kids…

 

It sounds like a wild dream. Good thing that Bucky isn’t  _ really  _ pregnant. Steve can let him pull his ‘prank’ and listen to all these carefully laid out details and plans and fears, but fortunately there is no real rush to start on house hunting. 

 

Probably by tomorrow morning Bucky will smirk and say something like  _ ‘April Fool’s! Gosh, of course I’m not really pregnant! But wouldn’t it be nice to really get kids? We can’t let the Avengers be our whole life’, _ and then they’ll be able to take their time -- a year, two years, as long as they need -- to really talk through this and perfect the plans.

 

Steve shakes his head, and pulls his phone out. He knows the line is as secure as it can get, but if he, even for a moment, believed that Bucky carried their kids he wouldn’t use it to even for calling Sam. But he desperately needs to share his bizarre morning with  _ someone,  _ and apparently everyone in the Tower is all in this joke.

 

_ “Steve, man, don’t tell me you have a situation there and need me back. I refuse to believe it. I know what day it is.” _

 

“No mission,” Steve says and sits down. He pulls one of the ultrasound pictures from the pile of papers and looks fondly at the expertly made photomanipulation. “Bucky is pregnant, and I’m looking for a godfather for the kids. Do you know anyone who would be up for the task?”

 

Sam’s hearty laugh is a wonderful sound.  _ “That’s a good one. Not going to fall for that one, either.” _

 

“How dare you accuse that Bucky is lying to me about this,” Steve deadpans.  _ “Of course  _ he’s pregnant, he told me so. It’s merely a coincidence that today is April Fool’s Day, c’mon Sam.”

 

_ “Yeah, yeah. So what’s your plan? Are you pretending that you fell for it?” _

 

Steve looks around the table. “Yeah... Sam, you should see this. He has put a lot of thought into this.”

 

_ “A lot of thought? What, is he carrying a pillow under his shirt everywhere?” _

 

Steve snorts. “No. But he has  _ forged ultrasound photos.  _ And he has roped everyone else in this, too.”

 

_ “Well, now I feel hurt. Why wasn’t I invited into this prank?” _

 

“Maybe because you’re not  _ here,”  _ Steve says. “How’s your mom?”

 

_ “All good. Hey, I gotta go now. Tell my congratulations for Barnes, and that you better name your kid Samuel or Samantha.” _

 

“There’s two of them on their way, but sure. Because that won’t get confusing at all, right?”

 

_ “I can be Sam and one of them can be Sammy, so I don’t know what you’re talking about. Bye!” _

 

Steve puts the phone down on the table, and startles at the sight of Bucky, with only a towel wrapped around him, glaring at him from the doorway.

 

“What the fuck, Steve,” Bucky hisses. “What part of ‘we need to keep them secret’ did you miss?!”

 

“It was just Sam,” Steve says defensively.

 

“You can’t talk about the kids  _ on the phone.  _ Or text about them. Why do you think we wrote all these security details on hand and in code?!” Bucky runs his fingers through his wet hair. “Jesus fucking Christ. I need a cigarette.”

 

“Well, if you’re pregnant--” Steve starts nastily. It’s not like Bucky is  _ actually  _ pregnant. Of course Steve would have been more carefully in that case, so it’s unreasonable for Bucky to get mad at him.

 

“Fuck off,  _ I know.  _ And it’s not like they even work for me anymore,” Bucky snaps and leaves the kitchen.

  
  


\---

  
  


By the time dinner time rolls over, Bucky has forgiven Steve (somewhat). JARVIS lets them know that they are invited to Pepper’s and Tony’s floor for a dinner.

 

“Do we have to,” Steve mutters.

 

“Yes, we have to,” Bucky says, and doesn’t even look at him from where he’s combing his hair in front of the hallway mirror. “Behave. Tony is seriously not that bad.”

 

“He’s worse.”

 

Bucky rolls his eyes. “You two are ridiculous. You’re  _ friends.” _

 

The thing is, they kind of are, but also kind of  _ aren’t. _

 

Steve respects Tony. He loves to have him with him on the battlefield. He admires the man.

 

But Tony, his humour, and his loud mouth also grate him and badly. Sure, Steve would trust Tony with his life… but when the lives are not at stake, he’d rather keep a polite distance. They just don’t have enough in common.

 

It’s kinda annoying that Bucky doesn’t agree with him, and actually enjoys spending time in Tony’s lab, helping him build and test out the robots and what nots.

 

“Tony loves kids and is going to spoil ours rotten, and you better accept that now,” Bucky says firmly. “He’s going to be around and you’ll need to deal with that. He’s already building toys in the lab, for fuck’s sake. So yes, we’re going to go have a dinner with them. Because we’re all  _ friends.  _ Just ignore him and talk with Pepper, she loves you and your ugly mug for some reason. C’mon, let’s go.”

  
  


\---

  
  


The dinner isn’t too bad, actually. It’s clear that Pepper and Tony are relishing to be in a joke -- Pepper keeps ribbing Steve, and Tony keeps needling him about his elaborate plans for all the loud, flashy, weird baby techs.

 

When it’s time for the dessert, one of the Tony’s robots brings them a tray full of strawberries from the kitchen. Pepper, understandably, goes into a huff, but apparently Bucky isn’t the only one with the weird April Fool’s pranks today.

 

“Pepper, honey, no,” Tony says frantically as Pepper is standing up, looking pretty pissed off and ready to storm off the table. “They’re  _ chocolate!  _ I thought- Okay, I guess it was stupid, but I thought that this would be funny. You know, I  _ did  _ remember your allergies! See! April Fool’s?”

 

Pepper glares at him, then sighs and sits down. “They better be delicious.”

 

“They better be, for the money I spent on them,” Tony says easily.

 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, I forgot today is April Fool’s,” Bucky moans.

 

Steve hides his smile. Yeah,  _ right. _

 

“Well, you have had a lot on your mind lately,” Pepper says with a soft smile.

 

“Yeah, but it’s one of my favorite days of the year,” Bucky says regretfully. “I used to pull the  _ best  _ pranks on Steve before the war.”

 

“That’s a very subjective statement, Buck,” Steve says mildly.

 

“Shut up, they were  _ hilarious,”  _ Bucky says. “You always fell for them. Guess I have to wait for the next year. Pepper, please tell me that the PR team pulled something amazing about Avengers?”

 

“Well, since the last year’s prank about the Civil War almost backfired on us when Steve and Tony  _ did _ get into a Twitter war against each other about the baseball, we didn’t pull anything big like that this year--”

  
  


\---

  
  


That evening Bucky comes to sleep in their bedroom again. He has stayed in the guest room for the whole week (he sometimes does that when he has hard time falling asleep, because he doesn’t want to disturb Steve’s sleep), and it’s so good to have him there again.

 

Steve shreds off his clothes. Natasha has sent him a text message that he smirks at _ (‘sam called. steve, you’re a moron, thanks for the laughs. i’ll come for a breakfast tomorrow morning’). _

 

There’s also a bunch of text messages from Sam that make him roll his eyes. Great, looks like Natasha talked him into the joke as well.

  
  


**Sam** : …

 

**Sam:** oh man, i don’t even know what to say

 

**Sam:** that offer of yours?

 

**Sam:** sure

 

**Sam:** also. i’ll be back in city tomorrow. i have a feeling that you might want some company while diving into that asgardian mead thor left for you

 

**Sam:** congrats

  
  


Steve ignores Natasha’s message and sends Sam a quick  _ ‘great, see you tomorrow!’,  _ and then puts his phone on his nightstand.

 

Bucky is already on the bed, sitting against the headboard, and scrolling through something on his tablet, with deep frown, genuinely distressed expression, and unhappy tilt to his lips. “Steve, we are going to homeschool the kids. Look, I found this blog--”

 

Steve climbs on the bed, and then gently takes the tablet from his hands. “It’s little early to talk about their schooling.”

 

Bucky makes a half-hearted grab towards the tablet. “I don’t want my kids bullied. Do you know how big percentage of kids get bullied and traumatized in school system? It’s fucking unbelievable, and with our luck, they’re going to inherit all of your stupid--”

 

Steve stretches to put the tablet on the nightstand, and then kisses Bucky quiet.

  
  


\---

  
  


It’s 5 AM, and as per usual, Steve wakes up promptly even without the alarm. However, it’s been a long week, and Bucky hasn’t been here in their bed  _ for days,  _ so Steve is in no rush to get up for his morning run. 

 

Bucky’s head is on his chest, and Steve nuzzles his hair, breathes in his scent, and wraps his arms tighter around him. “I love you,” he whispers into the silence.

 

“Fuck off, lemme sleep,” a grumpy, sleepy voice slurs, and a bit of saliva drops on Steve’s chest.

 

Steve bites lightly Bucky’s ear in retaliation, but Bucky doesn’t even react, his breathing already slowing and deepening as he drifts back to proper sleep.

 

Steve closes his eyes and relaxes. In few hours, they’ll wake up and face the April 2nd. Bucky will finally fess up about his weird prank, and they’ll have a real talk about kids and the future.

 

Steve has had almost 24 hours to wrap his head around the idea of getting kids, for real, and the more he thinks about it, the more he feels like there’s one glaring assumption in Bucky’s plans that he needs to correct. This, waking up in each other’s arms every day, is something that Steve is not ready to give up, and maybe he doesn’t have to. 

 

Bucky didn’t ask for it even once, didn’t even consider it a possibility yesterday when going through all the details regarding how Steve should handle missions, stealthy journeys between the Tower and home, and practice his disguises… but maybe… maybe Steve is ready to pass on his shield finally. Sam would make amazing Captain, and the new Avengers don’t exactly need Steve anymore.

 

They would still need to be careful, but there could be ways around that. Maybe they could have two houses next to each other, with a secret tunnel connecting them together, or--

 

Steve’s thoughts come to a halt when his supersoldier ears pick up on something  _ weird. _

 

During the early morning, the ventilation inside the Tower is still turned down and the background noise from outside the Tower is minimum. Bucky’s breathing, his strong, steady heartbeat, as well as the rest of the odd noises their bodies are doing from bowel movements to crinks of joints are  _ almost  _ enough to cover the faint, rapid  _ thump thump thump thump thumps. _

 

But since this isn’t the first morning that Steve has laid awake, listening to only their bodies’ comfortingly familiar noises, he can easily identify the sounds that are not part of the usual repertoire.

 

He sits up fast and Bucky jerks awake.

 

“What the-!” Bucky exclaims and his eyes are already scanning the room, looking for the threats.

 

“Shush!” Steve says, and  _ holy shit what the hell,  _ when he presses his ear against Bucky’s abdomen  _ the heartbeats are unmistakable. _ “What the fuck.”

 

Bucky lets out a startled chuckle, and then his fingers are in Steve’s hair, his hand gentle yet shaking. “I  _ know,  _ right? It’s fucking surreal. Goddamnit, I’ve wanted to drown myself in whiskey barrel ever since I heard them for the first time.”

 

Steve’s brain is done. He can’t think.

 

“Steve, are you okay?”

 

Steve pulls up and stares at Bucky. “I thought it was a prank.”

 

Bucky frowns. “What?” Then it clicks, and his expression turns incredible.  _ “You thought I was pranking you with this the whole day?” _

  
  


\---

  
  


Steve is banished to the couch for the rest of the morning after fifteen minutes of gawking and staring and making odd hysterical noises and wild gestures. He’s not sure if Bucky is more amused or pissed off, but the couch is a good place still. Steve spends few hours laying on it and staring at the ceiling.

 

At 8 AM Natasha strolls in from the elevator with a bottle of Asgardian mead in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other. She smirks at the sight of Steve.

 

“I thought it was a prank,” Steve repeats, because his brain has still not come back online.

 

“Because you’re a moron,” Natasha says and pats his head. Then she offers the mead for him, and sits on the armchair next to the couch. “Congrats, daddy.”

 

 

 

 


End file.
